open_rasterio fails on NetCDF files with non-standard time units

[ricardog]

Code Sample

NOTE: The dataset is available from the LUH2 site.

import rioxarray as rxr
rxr.open_rasterio('multiple-states_input4MIPs_landState_ScenarioMIP_UofMD-MESSAGE-ssp245-2-1-f_gn_2015-2100.nc')

Problem description

The LUH2 datasets have a non-standard time units (years since 2015-01-01 0:0:0) which causes open_rasterio() to fail with an exception. The error message suggest passing the flag decode_times=False or installing cftime. Neither approach solved the problem for me.

It would be great if rioxarray had the equivalent of decode_times for datasets like this one.

Caveat: I don't get an exception when opening the file remotely via http:// You will need to download the file and run it locally.

Expected Output

open_rasterio() succeeds.

Environment Information

rioxarray (0.3.1) deps:
  rasterio: 1.2.2
    xarray: 0.17.0
      GDAL: 3.2.2

Other python deps:
     scipy: 1.6.2
    pyproj: 3.0.1

Installation method

• pypi

Packages

Package           Version
----------------- ---------
affine            2.3.0
attrs             20.3.0
blosc             1.9.2
bokeh             2.3.1
certifi           2020.12.5
cftime            1.4.1
click             7.1.2
click-plugins     1.1.1
cligj             0.7.1
cloudpickle       1.6.0
cycler            0.10.0
dask              2021.4.0
distributed       2021.4.0
fsspec            2021.4.0
HeapDict          1.0.1
Jinja2            2.11.3
kiwisolver        1.3.1
locket            0.2.1
lz4               3.1.1
MarkupSafe        1.1.1
matplotlib        3.4.1
msgpack           1.0.0
netCDF4           1.5.6
numpy             1.18.1
packaging         20.9
pandas            1.2.4
partd             1.2.0
Pillow            8.2.0
pip               21.0.1
psutil            5.8.0
pyflakes          2.3.1
pyparsing         2.4.7
pyproj            3.0.1
python-dateutil   2.8.1
pytz              2021.1
PyYAML            5.4.1
rasterio          1.2.2
rioxarray         0.3.1
scipy             1.6.2
setuptools        56.0.0
six               1.15.0
snuggs            1.4.7
sortedcontainers  2.3.0
tblib             1.7.0
toolz             0.11.1
tornado           6.1
typing-extensions 3.7.4.3
wheel             0.36.2
xarray            0.17.0
zict              2.0.0

[snowman2]

I think adding the decode_times argument make sense.

[snowman2]

Will need to add it to:

• rasterio engine here
• open_rasterio here

[snowman2]

Fix in #319

[ricardog]

Thank you!